William Alwyn is best known for his orchestral
works – in particular the fine series of five symphonies
already issued by Naxos – and his music for films such
as The History of Mr Polly, Carve Her Name With
Pride and A Night to Remember. His songs and
chamber music are much less familiar. This fact is reinforced
by the fact that five of the eight works on this CD are
receiving their first recordings.

This CD includes music which spans fifty years
of Alwyn’s career, although all but two of the pieces originate
from the decade 1938-48. The earliest works on this enterprising
disc are the Two Songs for Voice, Violin and Piano of 1931.
Alwyn’s music for voice is probably the least well-known
of his less familiar output. These two songs, Wood Magic and Lament
of the Tall Tree set poems by Alwyn himself. Both reflect
on themes of nature and loneliness and are imaginatively
arranged for the unusual line-up of baritone, piano and
violin. More conventional are the Three Songs to Words
by Trevor Blakemore from 1940. Again, these songs are reflective
in nature, although I found them strangely less satisfying
that the two earlier settings. I found the recording balance
for the songs very slightly on the reverberant side. I
would have appreciated having Jeremy Huw Williams’ voice
a little closer in the balance relative to Iain Burnside’s
piano and swathed in slightly less of Potton Halls’s lovely
acoustic. Sadly, no words for the latter three songs were
provided in the booklet.

The Rhapsody for Piano Quartet which opens the
disc is a strong, muscular work with a more subdued middle
section. It reminded me of Bax in parts and I would imagine
this would be a welcome addition to the piano quartet repertoire
for those that discovered it. The Sonata Impromptu for
violin and viola is a slightly later work and was written
for Frederick Grinke and Watson Forbes, who gave the first
performance in 1940. For me, this piece rewarded repeated
listening. It is never easy to write for just two string
instruments but Alwyn rises to the challenge admirably,
especially in the imaginative Theme and Variations second
movement. All three movements use contrapuntal fugal writing
allowing the aural illusion of there being more then two
instruments present. This is further strengthened by the
excellent performance by Madeleine Mitchell and Roger Chase
who are perfectly matched as musical partners and lend
to the music an apparent ease of execution which belies
the music’s technical complexities.

The violist Watson Forbes was one of the dedicatees
of another of Alwyn’s works from 1939; the Ballade for
Viola and Piano – the other dedicatee being Myers Foggin.
Like the slightly earlier Rhapsody for Piano Quartet, the
Ballade flows freely from beginning to end, without any
serious symphonic ‘development’. Roger Chase again plays
beautifully, ably supported by Andrew Ball. The early Sonatina
for Violin and Piano from 1933 inhabits a more tranquil,
wistful world than the other instrumental pieces on this
CD and is one of Alwyn’s more overtly lyrical works. For
all its brevity – less than eleven minutes – its three
contrasting movements are immensely satisfying and it is
astonishing that this is the Sonatina’s first ever recording.
As in all her appearances on this disc, Madeleine Mitchell
gives a flawless and thoroughly idiomatic performance with
Andrew Ball again proving the perfect duo partner.

The Three Winter Poems for String Quartet date
from the beginning of 1948 and were dedicated to Alwyn’s
former teacher John B McEwen. It is one of many works for
string quartet that the composer wrote prior to his ‘official’ First
String Quartet in 1953 and it was never performed in Alwyn’s
lifetime. It received its first performance by the Maraini
Quartet in June 2005, during the composer’s centenary year.
These effective miniatures are self-explanatory in their
character and the Bridge String Quartet gives convincing
but perhaps slightly understated performances.

In later life, Alwyn’s health was not good and
he had more or less decided that his composing days were
over. However, he was persuaded to put pen to paper again
in 1982 when recorder player John Turner was compiling
an album of short pieces by his colleagues for composer
Thomas Pitfield’s eightieth birthday for the following
year. The Chaconne for Tom joined other pieces by
Alan Bush, Gordon Crosse, Anthony Gilbert and John McCabe
and is an engaging set of variations on Happy Birthday
to You for recorder – played here by Turner himself – and
piano – here Iain Burnside taking time out from his song
accompaniments. It proved actually to be Alwyn’s penultimate
work, the Third String Quartet following in 1984.

For lovers of post-romantic English music in general
and of William Alwyn’s work in particular, this must be
an indispensable issue. Just under half of the disc’s playing
time comprises works never heard before on CD and the others – represented
on a Chandos CD with only the Rhapsody appears elsewhere
as well – all receive the sort of winning performances
one has come to expect from Naxos’s superb survey of twentieth-century
English music.

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